


Go the *Bleep* to Sleep

by royal_chandler



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Baby Fic, Domestic Fluff, Gen, M/M, Married Couple, Parenthood, Superfamily, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 01:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15652713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royal_chandler/pseuds/royal_chandler
Summary: Tony is waning, a middle-aged father who’s up against it and judging his younger self for ever taking sleep for granted.





	Go the *Bleep* to Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> More domestic Stony/Superfamily because it’s my lifeblood and Iron Dad is just THE BEST.
> 
> Thanks to my beta [FestiveFerret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret) for looking this over!

The music cuts off in the workshop, and Steve comes through the doors with sleepy-eyes—drooping into that weird blink he gets, right lid down, the left just behind—and Peter babbling non-stop in his arms. Steve’s nodding and commenting on everything Peter’s saying to him, attentive and considering as always. Something he and Tony have agreed on and made a priority from day one—before day one even, at the twinkle-in-the-eye stage—is listening to Peter.

“Dada! Dada, hiya, Dada!”

“Hey, baby,” Tony greets with a beaming grin. He puts away his work and meets the two of them halfway. “He can’t sleep,” Tony divines.

“He _won’t_ sleep,” Steve tells him with a sigh. “And I know it’s my turn, but I’ve gotta fly out to DC first thing tomorrow morning and I still have those reports on last week’s mission to put together and Peter keeps talking to me about bananas—”

“Nana,” Peter mimics at the mention.

“I think he’s got a new favorite word. ‘Duck’ is old news.”

“Psh. Kids are so fickle these days. Here gimme.” Tony takes Peter, who barnacles to him once Steve passes him over. He and his tugboat-patterned sleeper smell like baby powder and the plant-based laundry detergent Steve prefers, soft with chamomile. Underneath, is a scent that doesn’t have a name aside from Peter. It has Tony‘s heart flooding with warmth when he takes an indulgent moment to nuzzle and breath him in. “Okay, let’s give Cappa a break, huh?”

Waving at Steve, and with a glee-filled grin that’s still fairly gummy, Peter crows, “Cappa!”

Tony laughs, and that sets Peter on a giggling spree. “Oh wow, someone is wide awake.”

Steve hums in agreement, watching them with a fond and tired smile, like there’s no place he’d rather be. Tony gets the feeling. With his hand stroking Peter’s dark, unruly hair, Steve murmurs, “He needs to go down soon, though. He hasn’t been up this late in months, and I don’t want his schedule thrown off. Remember how long it took to get him sleeping through the night?”

“Only all too well. I perfected the skill of navigating to the nursery as a freaking zombie. Had to save your life when you fell asleep in the shower.” Tony sways with their little fifteen-month old night owl. 

“You’ll never fail to mention that, will you?”

“Hah, I don’t forget anything and that gem is priceless so no, not a chance, hotstuff.”

Steve rolls his eyes. 

“And don’t worry. A little time with me and he’ll be snoring before he knows it.” Tony makes silly faces into Peter’s hands that are cupping his cheeks and squishing them like his favorite squeak-toy. “Won’t you? We’re gonna crush bedtime, aren’t we, kid? Make bedtime our you-know-what.”

Steve looks skeptical, one eyebrow high and lips quirked, but he doesn’t comment. Instead, he leans over and presses a tender kiss to Peter’s forehead, boops noses. “Night, sweetheart. I love you.”

“You you, Cappa,” Peter excitedly says right back, and god, that’s adorable.

“Try not to keep Daddy up too late. He’s even grumpier than you if he doesn’t get a solid eight hours,” Steve smart-alecks with a wink that will always put a curl of heat in Tony’s stomach and get him to short-circuit to a certain degree.

“Har, har,” Tony mutters into a nudging kiss that’s slow, long, and sweet, careful of Peter between them. He drags out of it with much reluctance and kisses the pout of Steve’s bottom lip once more like he’d forgotten to cross his Ts. “Have no idea why I put up with you.”

“I can think of a few reasons that you’ve shown a lot of, um, appreciation for.”

“Lordy. That’s not kid-friendly.”

“Get to bed on time and maybe before I leave tomorrow, I’ll really show you what’s not kid-friendly.”

Tony whistles low. “Talk about an incentive.” He shoos at Steve. “Alright, go store up your energy or whatever. I’ve got the baby.”

After Steve leaves them with another round of kisses and ‘good nights’, Tony looks down into Peter’s bright and thoughtful gaze. “You wanna hear about Daddy’s latest game-changer in renewable energy?”

Peter apparently does. Even with the tiers of the projections dimmed, he’s wide-eyed and fascinated, poking his pudgy fingers at the blue-lit configurations. There’s a peal of laughter each time his hand passes through and the light explodes into specks of starburst. For a good twenty minutes, with his son on his hip, Tony goes over controlled fusion reactions and how thermodynamic conversions result in electricity output, and Peter returns the chatter as if he understands. And maybe one day he will; it’d be wonderful, to share that with Peter, but it’s another thing Tony’s promised himself: he won’t ever force this on his child. If Peter ever comes to choose the scientific route, it’ll be just that, his choice.

However, it becomes clear that Peter is way too interested right at this specific moment, with no signs of drowsiness, so Tony switches Peter to his other side, swipes away the projection, and changes tactics.

“Hey, J, you mind dropping the needle on Peter’s playlist?”

In a smooth sweep, Aretha Franklin and her background trio start the layered intro of _Day Dreaming,_ and Tony gently rocks with Peter once more, softly singing to him and stroking his back. It gets Peter to quiet down to a hush of small and percussive noises, his hand a patting starfish on the material of Tony’s shirt. The kid’s got good taste, a big fan of seventies soul. By the fourth song in, the patting stops and Tony peers down to find fluttering eyelashes and Peter breathing softly through his small mouth. With a nonverbal signal to JARVIS, the music fades out, and Tony quietly hikes the stairs outside the workshop. He’s just reached the landing and is heading for the elevator when Peter stirs again.

“Shh, it’s alright, baby. Daddy’s here. It’s okay,” Tony shushes, lightly kissing the top of his head and his temple, trying to coax him back to sleep. “Daddy’s right here. Let’s go to sleep, buddy.”

“Dada,” he mumbles and strings together a few more, unnervingly more awake with each one. Peter raises his head and nearly glances Tony’s chin, only nearly because since parenthood, Tony’s developed a learned response from a few eye-stinging hits that made his molars rattle. This time it’s Peter’s most precious, heart-squeezing stare that causes him to wince hard.

“Oh, you little monster. That’s dirty. Your father is going to kill me, you know this. Is that what you want? Cause that’s what will happen. And you, you’ll grow up thinking I was just a gabby figment of your imagination because Cappa will put away all of my pictures in his time of grief...that he caused by killing me because I didn’t get you in bed at a reasonable hour.”

Peter remains unmoved, smiling at Tony and obviously entertained by his father’s plight.

“Sleep, Peter,” Tony says in a long stretch and from a nose away, and it’s back to the squeak-toy business. This time with a delightful little sing-song melody Tony recognizes from countless mornings of Sesame Street. “Please. I implore you. Sleep for Daddy.”

Like he’s giving it some thought, Peter’s brown eyes are inquisitive, and when he’s done deliberating, he says simply, “Nope, sleep.”

And that ‘nope’ is all Steve. 

“Um, yes, sleep. Sleep is awesome and we love it and Daddy is so tired. We’re putting you to sleep. How about some warm milk? You like that. Let’s try that. Or a banana? Natural source of melatonin, good sleepy carbs. Bananas?”

“Nana!” Peter shrieks and as if he wasn’t clear, “Nana, nana, nana.”

The banana doesn’t have the desired impact, and more than half of it ends up smeared on Peter’s round face and webbed between his sticky fingers, which he tracks through Tony’s beard. After cleaning up his messy son with wetwipes they’ve long since learned to stock in the kitchen, Tony tries a sippy cup of warm milk, and that also turns out to be an epic whale of failure. It loses a contentious staring contest with Peter and goes cold on the tray of the high-chair.

Resorting to what worked when Peter was just weeks old with colic, Tony ends up fitting him into a light jacket and piling them into the Subaru he still can’t believe he actually owns but has proven to be reliable for discretion as well as safety.

The city streaks around them in traffic light gradients, neon signs glowing through the windshield. And Tony has passed the tower for the third time when he checks the digital clock on the center console and winces. “Pete, you are kicking my as--cot.” Sighing in defeat, he confirms, “Yep, you’re kicking my ascot.”

Along with one in the morning, Tony spies Peter in the rearview mirror, bopping with his legs swinging to the radio. And Tony is waning, a middle-aged father who’s up against it and judging his younger self for ever taking sleep for granted, so he takes a few left turns and pulls into a late night drive-thru, ordering a coffee over Peter's enthusiastic hellos to the voice coming out of the speaker box. Sympathy beats out awe and shock on the face of the purple-haired twenty-something manning the window when they roll up, and that’s just perfect.

The drive back, a large coffee, and the last half of some B-rated action movie later, the tv is watching them more than they’re watching it. Asinine infomercials flip from bacon grease trappers to an anti-snore strap that reminds Tony of the traumatic year he spent in orthodontic headgear. With Peter on his lap, and sponsored by the dicey cocktail of espresso and fatigue, Tony creates limericks over his kid’s mop-top as the two of them tap away at the child-development game on Tony’s tablet.

“Blue balloon goes with the blue train.” He guides Peter’s fingers across the screen. “Peter is driving Daddy slightly insane.”

Eventually, the limericks spin into a sprawling tale, and Tony’s covering a particularly maudlin episode about an ironic epithet for his tombstone when a long yawn interrupts him. Panda-like, Peter is rubbing at one eye with a tiny fist.

“Oh my god, it’s happening. Are you ready for bed?” Tony asks. Peter’s answer is to scrunch up his face and make a grabby hand at Tony, whimpering unhappily, which in turn gives Tony heavy heartstrings. Tony sets aside the tablet, and then Peter is clambering up his front and resting his head on Tony’s shoulder. Fingernails that need to be trimmed bite at the skin above Tony’s shirt collar in their possessive clutch, and Peter mumbles for a short while before dozing off.

This round, Peter lasts up the stairs and all the way to the nursery, breathing deeply against Tony’s neck the entire time. And even with the night they’ve had—the exhaustion, near-frustration, and the fact that tomorrow is going to be effing brutal—Tony is hesitant to let his sweet little boy go.

“I love you so much, kiddo,” Tony says, pressing a soft kiss to Peter’s cheek and smoothing a hand over his hair, almost wishing he could stall time. He carefully sets Peter down and draws his blanket over him, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Before he leaves, he clicks on the lamp that’s shade with cut-out shapes throws crescent moons and stars on the muraled walls.

When he finally makes it to his own room, Tony sheds down to his shorts, leaving a trail of his clothes on the floor like snakeskin. He spoons behind Steve, tucking his knees into the back of his husband’s and wrapping him up with a breath of content.

A light sleeper, Steve shifts, lifting his head, and Tony knows the alarm clock is being eyed so he hides his face in the warm space between Steve’s shoulders with a fake snore. Not buying it, Steve says in sleep-rough disbelieving horror, “What in the world? Tony, it’s after three am.”

“I may have underestimated our son’s extraordinary willpower,” Tony says, muffled and barely remaining in consciousness, the companionship of his husband’s skin and scent lulling him toward sleep. “Not my fault. He gets it from you.”

On a Steve-patented mix of a groan and exasperated sigh, he says, “Tony.”

“I’ll take over bedtime duty for the next week,” Tony says, shutting his eyes.

“You think?” Steve pulls Tony’s hands tighter around himself and kisses his fingertips. “Go to sleep.”

And Tony does. 

**fin**

**Author's Note:**

> I read on tumblr that RDJ once promised his wife he'd put their kid to sleep but he and his son actually stayed up until 3AM. I had to turn that anecdote into Superfamily. I just had to.


End file.
